Question

I have three tables with people, the attributes and potential value for the attributes. I can’t figure out a query to display all the people, each persons attributes and their missing/null attributes.

Here’s an example table…

attributes
+---------------------+
| attribute_name (col)|
+---------------------+
| name                |
+---------------------+
| age                 |
+---------------------+
| gender              |
+---------------------+
| email               |
+---------------------+

people
+-----------+----------+
| person_id | value_id |
+-----------+----------+
| 2         | 7        |
+-----------+----------+
| 2         | 9        |
+-----------+----------+
| 3         | 8        |
+-----------+----------+

values
+---------------+----------------+-------+
| value_id (pk) | attribute_name | value |
+---------------+----------------+-------+
| 7             | age            | 35    |
+---------------+----------------+-------+
| 8             | age            | 28    |
+---------------+----------------+-------+
| 9             | gender         | male  |
+---------------+----------------+-------+

How do I join the three tables to display something like this?

+-----------+----------+-----------------+--------+
| person_id | value_id | attribute_name  | value  |
+-----------+----------+-----------------+--------+
| 2         | 7        | age             | 35     |
+-----------+----------+-----------------+--------+
| 2         | 9        | gender          | male   |
+-----------+----------+-----------------+--------+
| 2         | NULL     | name            | NULL   |
+-----------+----------+-----------------+--------+
| 2         | NULL     | email           | NULL   |
+-----------+----------+-----------------+--------+
| 3         | 8        | age             | 28     |
+-----------+----------+-----------------+--------+
| 3         | NULL     | gender          | NULL   |
+-----------+----------+-----------------+--------+
| 3         | NULL     | name            | NULL   |
+-----------+----------+-----------------+--------+
| 3         | NULL     | email           | NULL   |
+-----------+----------+-----------------+--------+

Answer 1

SELECT  a.person_ID, 
        MAX(c.value_ID) value_ID, 
        b.attribute_name ,  
        MAX(c.value) Value
FROM    people a
        CROSS JOIN attributes b       
        LEFT JOIN `values` c
            ON  a.value_ID = c.value_ID AND
                b.attribute_name = c.attribute_name
GROUP BY a.person_ID, b.attribute_name

• SQLFiddle Demo